It was the very recent death of his mother that emerged in him during this time, this fleeing from snow-swept China. Now in New Zealand, he felt his creative fingertips for the first time in months. He re-discovered the warmth of Marion’s hands and laugh again, the hearth which had always been there, the arms…

Kazuo Ishiguro is famed chiefly as winner of the Booker Prize for his novel, The Remains of the Day, the virtues of which are beyond dispute, but will not be discussed here. Instead I want to concentrate on his novel of 2000 (shortlisted for the MAN Booker Prize), When We Were Orphans – a masterpiece…